No, but I want to hear it always. I want to
be always where you are, Nance. That's what's got to be settled
to-day--to-night."

"Oh, it's got to be settled to-night!" said the girl, meditatively,
kicking nervously at a log on the fire. "It takes two to settle a thing
like that, and there's only one says it's got to be settled. Maybe it
takes more than two--or three--to settle a thing like that." Now she
laughed mirthlessly.

The man started, and his face flushed with anger; then he put a hand on
himself, drew a step back, and watched her.

"_One_ can settle a thing, if there's a dozen in it. You see, Nance, you
and Bantry've got to close out. He's fixing it up to-night over at
Dingan's Drive, and you can't go it alone when you quit this place. Now,
it's this way: you can go West with Bantry, or you can go North with me.
Away North there's buffalo and deer, and game a-plenty, up along the
Saskatchewan, and farther up on the Peace River. It's going to be all
right up there for half a lifetime, and we can have it in our own way yet.
There'll be no smuggling, but there'll be trading, and land to get; and,
mebbe, there'd be no need of smuggling, for we can make it, I know
how--good white whiskey--and we'll still have this free life for our own.
I can't make up my mind to settle down to a clean collar and going to
church on Sundays, and all that. And the West's in your bones, too. You
look like the West--"

The girl's face brightened with pleasure, and she gazed at him steadily.

"You got its beauty and its freshness, and you got its heat and cold--"

She saw the tobacco-juice stain at the corners of his mouth, she became
conscious of the slight odor of spirits in the air, and the light in her
face lowered in intensity.

"You got the ways of the deer in your walk, the song o' the birds in your
voice; and you're going North with me, Nance, for I bin talkin' to you
stiddy four years. It's a long time to wait on the chance, for there's
always _women_ to be got, same as others have done--men like Dingan with
Injun girls, and men like Tobey with half-breeds. But I ain't bin lookin'
that way. I bin lookin' only toward you." He laughed eagerly, and lifted a
tin cup of whiskey standing on a table near. "I'm lookin' toward you now,
Nance. Your health and mine together. It's got to be settled now. You got
to go to the 'Cific Coast with Bantry, or North with me."

The girl jerked a shoulder and frowned a little. He seemed so sur